Memorandum by Professor Jack Hayward (DH
01)
After several years of procrastination before
dealing with what the Ombudsman's report has called a "debt
of honour", the MoD hastily improvised a scheme that—when
modified—resulted in an offensive discrimination against
some British subjects interned during the Second World War by
the Japanese. As one of those invited to apply under the original
scheme, I did so, determined to give the financial compensation
to charity, being primarily concerned with the welcome if belated
recognition by the British Government of those of us who had suffered
internment in the Far East solely because of their British identity.
As well as my parents, both brothers and one of my three sisters
incarcerated have since died, as have many others.
The central issue of maladministration arises
from the unwillingness of MoD officials and their badly advised
ministers to acknowledge their conspicuous errors. As the Ombudsman's
report indicates in para 100, the DWP lawyer made the crucial
point that "the key is to ensure that `British' is based
on the legislation at the time". The 1914 British Nationality
Act was then operative; imperial Great Britain had not yet shrunk
to the dimensions of a Little Britain as conceived by the MoD
in confining being British to those with a UK blood link. Quibbles
about a post facto "intention", disingenuous and implausible
other than as an afterthought, do not face this fact. As para
117 shows in quoting a Veterans Agency note to the MoD, they were
well aware of the "potentially embarrassing contradictions
arising out of the current definition". The MoD chose then
and persists now in refusing to acknowledge the resulting slur
on the British subjects excluded from the scheme although imprisoned
alongside their fellow Britons.
By upbringing, culture and values I have always
felt wholly British, even before being "repatriated"—yes,
repatriated—to Britain early in 1946. To be informed, by
implication, that I belonged to a lesser breed without the law,
a law not applicable at the relevant time, was an intolerable
insult, which called for an official public apology. All that
has been forthcoming is an unsolicited cheque for £500 which
I have returned to the Veterans Agency. Money is not the measure
of all things, least of all where a matter of personal and national
honour is concerned. The sum offered, as against the £10,000
under the scheme, simply underlined the MoD's continuing refusal
to acknowledge that I was (and am) a Briton without prefix or
suffix. The MoD seems to regard its prime concern not to be national
defence but self-defence.
My hope is that, in the light of the Ombudsman's
Report, the House of Commons will at last extract from a reluctant
minister reparation for the shameful conduct of his predecessors.
To continue to endorse it is to compound their obstinacy and obtuseness,
unworthy of senior officials and ministers of the crown who purport
to speak in the name of the British people.
November 2005
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